eHealth consumerism: An exploratory study of the impact people who wish to communicate with their physician via Internet-based applications will have on the physician's practice

The purpose of this study is to assess the interest and intent of a population of consumers that utilize the Internet to search for health related information and determine to what level they would like to communicate with their physician through the Internet. In this study, consumers that meet this qualification are called eHealth Consumers. The report assesses the potential number of eHealth consumers in the US that would switch to a new physician because they use the Internet to communicate with their patients.;The method of assessing eHealth consumers' intent to switch was to survey qualified eHealth consumers via an Internet-based survey tool of 23 questions. The method allowed the respondent to read, point and click their answers online and directly into the database. The ease of this process facilitated a response rate of 11% of those eHealth consumers invited to participate.;The survey questions were grouped into four categories: demographic, actions performed online, opinion related, and behavioral initiative questions. Question types included Likert scale, single choice and open-ended.;The statistical analysis tool used was the SPSS program to analyze coded survey responses. Frequencies and cross-tabulations based on the survey population demographics were prepared. Cross-tab for age and gender, past online purchases, distance from their physician, desire to have Internet access to their physician was run for specific questions. The Chi-square test of statistical significance was applied to the questions and discriminant variable analysis was performed in an attempt to profile potential switchers.;The assessment tools demonstrated little significant relationship between age, gender and other factors that would allow for the creation of an identity profile of the typical eHealth consumer that would switch physicians. However, the data does imply that use of the Internet by physicians to communicate with their patients will not only maintain the 3% of current patient population that state they will switch to a physician using the Internet, but also potentially attract more patients who are searching for an eHealth physician.